Scrambles Amongst the Alps in the Years 1860–69

Edward Whymper’s account of his climbing campaigns in the Alps between 1860 and 1869 is one of the founding books of mountaineering literature. Much of it drives toward a single day: 14 July 1865, when Whymper and his companions made the first ascent of the Matterhorn, only for four of the party to fall to their deaths on the descent when a rope broke. Whymper writes with a surveyor’s eye and a storyteller’s nerve about glaciers, ridges, storms, and near misses, and he illustrated the book himself with sharp wood engravings. It remains a gripping firsthand record of the golden age of Alpine climbing and its costs. Free to download as a PDF and EPUB edition.